116 replies to this topic

[RickEdwards]

dunniteowl, on Feb 19 2021 - 18:26, said:

 

Oh, I don't know about that.  100% FTPP here and I do better than a few folks on the forums that regularly keep asking, "How much do I have to spend to win more?"

 

Pay for Reduced Grind, more like.  At this point, I have, literally THOUSANDS of Large, Small Repair and 1st Aid kits, Manual and Auto Fire Ext's, plenty of EXTRA equipment modules from Class 1 to Class 3.  I have food from many nations, none of which I purchased, all won in game.  I have Premium Consumables galore, 9,340 in Bonds, 10,629 Gold, none of which I purchased, all won in Events or just during regular play.  I have 35,947,856 credits and 447,724 Available Free XP, with more banked that I can convert the next 40:1 conversion sale.

 

In other words, I can spend like a drunken sailor on shore leave after six months and not worry about having an empty pocket for many, many months if I so chose.

 

There are way too many paying players or Premium Players (PPs, vs Free To Play Players [ FTPP] ) that do not do very well overall and there are a good few that I can run circles around, even with my craptop and rural wireless connection.

 

No amount of money makes you smarter, more aware or provides you greater knowledge of how to play.  And any advantage isn't really an advantage if the person holding said 'advantage' squanders it.

 

 

GL, HF & HSYBF!
OvO

 

It seems the term "pay2win" is being misunderstood here. It simply means that you can pay extra for an advantage in game; you are not directly paying for a win or a 100% winrate. Even paying more with an in-game currency could be considered pay2win. Of course there are people who spam gold and such and still do poorly, but the thing is that if they did not spam that gold, they would do even more poorly. So they're paying extra for an advantage that then results in a higher winrate. Even if that winrate is only very slightly higher than it would be without the use of gold, that player is still paying for those wins they got through the use of gold ammo.

 

Then you take into account how the in-game economy works; if someone wants to play tier 10 frequently, even doing rather well most games and not even shooting a single gold round, you still generally lose credits over time (I know this cause I basically only play tier 10 and never load premium anything into them). However, if you run a premium account and do the same thing, you make pretty good money; if you run a premium account and shoot some gold, at the very least you generally don't lose money; if you run a premium tank with a premium account and spam all gold, you still make money. You're paying real money for the ability to continuously shoot those gold rounds.

[dunniteowl]

I think I have a pretty good handle on what "Pay to Win" means.  It means what it says.  If you pay, there is every indication that you will win more.  It simply isn't remotely true in this game sense.  There might be, as some mention, 'pay-to-win' elements (though I do not agree that this is the case) that make it a sort of gray area, which I can sort of understand in their context.

 

That said, you don't get to wrap the meaning around like a big fat pretzel to make it mean what you want it to mean.  Pay to win means you pay, you win.

 

 

OvO

[RickEdwards]

dunniteowl, on Feb 20 2021 - 01:06, said:

I think I have a pretty good handle on what "Pay to Win" means.  It means what it says.  If you pay, there is every indication that you will win more.  It simply isn't remotely true in this game sense.  There might be, as some mention, 'pay-to-win' elements (though I do not agree that this is the case) that make it a sort of gray area, which I can sort of understand in their context.

 

That said, you don't get to wrap the meaning around like a big fat pretzel to make it mean what you want it to mean.  Pay to win means you pay, you win.

 

 

OvO

 

There is no game that has a mechanic that makes you win 100% of the time if you pay; that's simply not a thing and not possible in most cases, since there are generally people on both sides using pay2win content. It's a name that is an oversimplification; if you want to be more accurate it should be "Pay2WinMore." Which, once again, clearly applies to gold ammo.

[dunniteowl]

Yeah, pay to win more is still pay to win.  If you pay ANYTHING and by that result you can PROVE that, due to it, you WIN MORE, then that's a pay to win situation.

 

Throwing gold by someone who does know what they're doing WILL result in more wins.  Right now, the accepted difference between not and 100% gold spamming is about a 2% difference in WR.

 

2% is not REALLY pay to win in the sense that you will feel more puissant and victorious on the whole.  You might not even really notice it.

 

All the things that can be purchased in this game can give YOU an advantage over an equally skilled or lesser skilled opponent.  That's ALL it can do.  Not ONE thing in this game is so superior that buying THAT will make the difference a lower skilled player seeks in order to win more.

 

This is the entire concept most people the world over believes implicitly:  You pay and you win more.  Get a bigger, higher tier tank and you win more.  Spam gold and you win more.  Use premium consumables and you win more.

 

Except:  You do not necessarily achieve the end result and the better a player you are the more likely you are to make that advantage work for you.  The worse a player you are the only thing you're really doing is wasting credits, gold, XP and your time in learning how to be a more skilled player.  And the more you rely on that money to make the difference, the LONGER it's going to take that person to realize the truth:

 

You can ONLY consistently win more if you know what you're doing. Slapping #2 or having nothing but the most expensive ammo is not going to make a better player out of a poor one.

 

In THIS game, paying does not equate to winning.  As I said earlier, paying out cash will NOT: Make you a better player, make you know more about the game mechanics or suddenly provide you with all the knowledge and skill you need to do that winning.

 

This game is NOT pay to win, and, again, that means, You Pay, You Win.  Whether that's just winning a bit more or winning a lot more is up to the skill of the player.  Forking out cash in this game and running all the spammy stuff you can get your hands on MIGHT (mostly those above 47% as it is) see an entire 2% increase in your WRs.

 

I am not that motivated to get that other 2%, because it's not skill, it's just tools acting as a crutch.  At the price that 2% requires?  It's just NOT a good return on the 'investment' to get better.

 

I found that reading up on game mechanics, crew, spotting and vision, movement and concealment, etc. proved to be MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE at changing my WR (I went from a steady recents of 48.5% to a pretty consistent 53%) and I did not have to spend one extra credit, any money or waste time in-game trying to get it all straight.

 

Now if folks WANT to spend their credits and do all that stuff, I'm totally fine with it.  I imagine I play against folks like that in pretty much every game.  Most of them are on the bottom of the team scores, but hey, you do you.  As long as you (not you specifically, you in general) rely on the tools to provide you the outcomes simply because they are there, you will not improve all that much by using them.

 

A pay to play player vs an free to play player is going to see the outcomes versus their overall skill and the tools (consumables, crew skills, premium ammo, etc) will only make around a 2% difference.

 

I can live with that without having to engage in it.  If others can live with that inordinate cost to achieve a mere 2% gain, I honestly would suggest they invest instead around 10 minutes a day for a week READING UP on how the game works.  

 

It's entirely a personal choice.  You can believe what you wish, honestly, you should hear some of the things my friends say sometimes.

 

2%.  Is it worth it?

 

 

 

GL, HF & HSYBF!
OvO

[SKurj]

getting to tier 10 before the joneses is not p2w

 

that is p2advancequicker towards a non-existent end game.

[MrBeetleBumEntertainment]

Ots090, on Dec 27 2020 - 20:48, said:

I'm kind of interested in this for a number of reasons. I think I know what the underlying mindset may represent, but I'm not sure.

I created an account six years ago but just recently started playing the game (1000 random battles). So I want to set up my tank and equipment to provide for success on the battlefield if I do the right things.

 

But there appears to be something associated with using more costly rounds in the game that generates criticism. The game has made these rounds available for any player's use, so why the criticism? Is it perceived as some sort of unearned advantage? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

There is nothing wrong with using gold ammo. It is still called gold ammo because at one time we had to buy it with gold which cost real world money to attain. Now the "Gold Ammo" can be bought by credits so EVERYONE can afford to buy it and use it if they chose. The added comment below shows as an example of people who believe the bs that so many people claim, its easy to make credits in tier tanks whos ap rounds can pen most tanks they face, its also easy to farm credits if you only use small repair kits etc and dont run food and dont use gold rounds but most importantly stay alive to farm credits, do damage and stay alive as long as you can'

 

 

bad_73, on Dec 27 2020 - 20:51, said:

Cus its basically a cheat that wg sells for money while making you think its not a money commodity tho you need to buy gold to make credits to afford to sling premium rounds.

 

 

Now the real reason why using gold ammo was looked down at is because people would say if you used gold ammo then you were not good enough to know where the weak spots were on tanks, true in some cases and with a lot of high mid tier tanks its still hard to pen weak spots even when you know exactly where they are.

 

The moral of the story is just ignore the toxic players who cry about gold ammo, they are just looking for an excuse to blame someone for killing them, they too can use gold ammo and they should, I always tell people a good load out is at least 3/4 of ap and then a few gold and a few of the splash type.

 

Have fun playing this great game.

 

 

Edited by MrBeetleBumEntertainment, Feb 20 2021 - 17:33.

[cavalry11]

Normal tank loadout in real world APFSDS much better than APCR and HEAT, you HEAT round is you HE nuff said.

[RickEdwards]

dunniteowl, on Feb 20 2021 - 15:30, said:

Yeah, pay to win more is still pay to win.  If you pay ANYTHING and by that result you can PROVE that, due to it, you WIN MORE, then that's a pay to win situation.

 

Throwing gold by someone who does know what they're doing WILL result in more wins.  Right now, the accepted difference between not and 100% gold spamming is about a 2% difference in WR.

 

2% is not REALLY pay to win in the sense that you will feel more puissant and victorious on the whole.  You might not even really notice it.

 

All the things that can be purchased in this game can give YOU an advantage over an equally skilled or lesser skilled opponent.  That's ALL it can do.  Not ONE thing in this game is so superior that buying THAT will make the difference a lower skilled player seeks in order to win more.

 

This is the entire concept most people the world over believes implicitly:  You pay and you win more.  Get a bigger, higher tier tank and you win more.  Spam gold and you win more.  Use premium consumables and you win more.

 

Except:  You do not necessarily achieve the end result and the better a player you are the more likely you are to make that advantage work for you.  The worse a player you are the only thing you're really doing is wasting credits, gold, XP and your time in learning how to be a more skilled player.  And the more you rely on that money to make the difference, the LONGER it's going to take that person to realize the truth:

 

You can ONLY consistently win more if you know what you're doing. Slapping #2 or having nothing but the most expensive ammo is not going to make a better player out of a poor one.

 

In THIS game, paying does not equate to winning.  As I said earlier, paying out cash will NOT: Make you a better player, make you know more about the game mechanics or suddenly provide you with all the knowledge and skill you need to do that winning.

 

This game is NOT pay to win, and, again, that means, You Pay, You Win.  Whether that's just winning a bit more or winning a lot more is up to the skill of the player.  Forking out cash in this game and running all the spammy stuff you can get your hands on MIGHT (mostly those above 47% as it is) see an entire 2% increase in your WRs.

 

I am not that motivated to get that other 2%, because it's not skill, it's just tools acting as a crutch.  At the price that 2% requires?  It's just NOT a good return on the 'investment' to get better.

 

I found that reading up on game mechanics, crew, spotting and vision, movement and concealment, etc. proved to be MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE at changing my WR (I went from a steady recents of 48.5% to a pretty consistent 53%) and I did not have to spend one extra credit, any money or waste time in-game trying to get it all straight.

 

Now if folks WANT to spend their credits and do all that stuff, I'm totally fine with it.  I imagine I play against folks like that in pretty much every game.  Most of them are on the bottom of the team scores, but hey, you do you.  As long as you (not you specifically, you in general) rely on the tools to provide you the outcomes simply because they are there, you will not improve all that much by using them.

 

A pay to play player vs an free to play player is going to see the outcomes versus their overall skill and the tools (consumables, crew skills, premium ammo, etc) will only make around a 2% difference.

 

I can live with that without having to engage in it.  If others can live with that inordinate cost to achieve a mere 2% gain, I honestly would suggest they invest instead around 10 minutes a day for a week READING UP on how the game works.  

 

It's entirely a personal choice.  You can believe what you wish, honestly, you should hear some of the things my friends say sometimes.

 

2%.  Is it worth it?

 

 

 

GL, HF & HSYBF!
OvO

 

A 2% increase is winrate is pretty significant... Like someone going from 49% to 51% would be going from a bad winrate to an okay winrate. Or even like 55% to 57%, as that is going from a good winrate to a really good one. Even if it was insignificant, which it really is not, that's pay2win.

Obviously learning how to actually play the game will help you more than spamming gold, but what about learning to play AND spamming gold? That gets you an even higher winrate.

 

As for other premium consumables, they are not nearly as much a problem, as they only give a fairly small advantage and cost a fair deal less per game, as gold ammo is generally 5k credits or so extra a shot. Other things like equipment (and food consumables) are not a problem cause they're cheaper and have opportunity costs as a down side (since you have to not use something else to use them, like dropping a fire extinguisher for food).

 

The bottom line is that if you take two people with the exact same skill level, and one spams only gold and the other fires only standard, the one that fires gold will do better simply by pressing a button and paying more. This is like, a textbook example of pay2win.

[dunniteowl]

I addressed that already.  The difference in spamming gold is going to be determined, in the end run, by the overall skill of the player.  That 2% is an average, but it is an average that will be a sliding scale for each player based on their overall skill to begin with.  In other words, a crap 44% player spamming gold is NOT going to suddenly rise to 46%. 

 

They will see a bit more damage and a bit more wins, but you can't spam gold if all you ever do is get one or two shots off before dying.

 

So a crap player isn't going to get the same benefit as a true unicum player.  Yeah, that unicum can go from 55% to 57% and that's nice, but it also indicates that said player might also have skill plateaued.  However the 49% player will more likely see something on the order of a .75% to 1.25%.  And while IN THIS GAME, that's a noteworthy change over large numbers, statistically it is considered 'insignificant,' in that it does not change the overall conditions of the curve by any large enough number to warrant that sort of sea change.

 

If you are a better player and want that bit more of an edge against another player as good or slightly better than you (and I made mention of this waaay earlier and in other threads regarding pay to win conditions) then that advantage can make the difference.  A bad player isn't going to suddenly be a better player by spamming gold ammo, because they have to be good enough in the first place to make that difference significant FOR THEM.

 

Survive

Do Damage (here is where gold spam comes into play)

Help Your Team

 

Those are the three cardinal points of a successful player.

 

Survive (Survival Rate of better than 25%, the higher the better)

          Vision and Spotting, Cover and Concealment

 

Do Damage (Damage Ratio close to or better than 1.0, Destruction ratio close to or better than 1.0)

         Armor and Penetration, all the above, Armor Angling, Hull Down, Sidescraping, Using Gun/Tank Depression

 

Help Your Team (Learn Maps, Be Aware of Game Flow, Position to Win, Flex When Needed, Pro-active, not Reactive)

       Map Awareness, Attention to Team Composition and Battle Flow, Situational Awareness and Map/Team Positioning, Knowing Tanks

 

That last one is the harder of the three to accomplish and makes the most significant difference in ANY player's ability to be successful at winning.

 

I would never tell someone, Don't use Gold Ammo.  If you want to and can afford to, by all means, keep me FTPP by supporting the WG economy with my heartfelt THANK YOU attached to it.  If you THINK it will make YOU a better player, you're kidding yourself.

 

It WILL improve on a sliding scale, your success/damage ratios and will be LESS if you are a poor to sub-average player and it will be MORE if you are an above average or unicum player.

In short, the benefit is one of reduced or diminishing returns the less skilled you are.  You WILL get some benefit.  It will be MORE the better a player you are.  It's a number of shots, shot accuracy to survival rate sort of thing.  If you do one or two shots of damage per game, you'll have more damage by those one or two shots.  This might net you ONE more win per hundred games due to it and you'll see a bump in your damage rates.

 

If you normally get 10 to 15 damaging shots in per game, well, that's a bit different, ain't it?

 

In other words, spamming gold helps better players significantly more (in terms of the % difference between a bad player's upped damage and a good player's upped damage) than it does bad players.

For me, the game economy is also part of the game.  If I manage my resources, do better than average, have plenty of Simoleans in the account, manage to earn/win gold, bonds and generate FXP that I can use to reduce my grind -- well, then, I feel I've managed effectively WHILE playing effectively.  Effective play means good earnings.  Good earnings means I can afford pretty much ALL the Premium Player's advantages other than Premium Time.

 

For me, this is good enough.  I don't aspire to be the best player out there.  I aspire to be the best player I can under the circumstances.

 

This means I carry a load out that includes gold ammo on every tank that can carry it.  I use about 10% or 10 rounds, whichever seems more reasonable of my total load out.  

 

It was after discussions JUST like this one that made me change my mind.  I used to not carry it at all, thinking it was NOTHING more than a crutch.  It's not.  I think using it 100% turns it into that, though.  It allows for more 'lazy' play, IMO, if you rely on it 100% of the time.

 

That's a "me" thing, though and I 100% accept that.  All I can say to that is that between myself and many other FTPPs who are decently above the server average that use #2 on the odd occasion that post in these forums, it has some gravitas of truth behind it as a method of play.  If we were to use 100% gold, our WRs would all pop up a bit and, were I truly competing for cash, earnings and such, yeah, I'd be meta-playing with a 100% Sprammo load, because it would be ridiculous not to if I were to actually be in that level of competition.

 

It's not that way, though, so I can do me in the manner I describe, do better than server average and that makes me pretty happy.  If others would rather carry all that extra cost, by all means, please.  It's your tank, your account and your choice.

 

That's my Favorite Part of this game.  You get to do you and no-one else really has a say in it as long as you're not breaking any rules.  Inclusive of your sense of what you think of as 'wise' or 'fair' play in this environment.  I love that about this game.

 

The thread here, though, was asking for points of view and opinion, so the thoughts I provide in that regard are just that, opinion.  As I said before, it was a discussion very much like this one after I had been playing about a year that changed my point of view of how I originally played to how I play now.  This is why I participate on the forums in the first place.  You can learn a lot just by reading how other people see things, as long as they focus on the subject at hand instead of the people in the thread.

 

Hope that answers your question from my perspective.

 

 

GL, HF & HSYBF!
OvO

[RickEdwards]

Honestly, the way you described it in that it makes better players do even better and doesn't help bad players kinda just makes it even worse, as they shouldn't need that extra help gold ammo provides. Those better players don't need some edge that they can get by just pressing a button. Also, at the end of the day, those "better players" are the ones spamming it the most, so using it against them is not giving an edge to anyone, it's just draining both of your credits so you can both play a dumbed-down version of the game where armor barely matters.

[dunniteowl]

Yes, RickEdwards, that's exactly the real problem with "gold" ammo.  The benefit scales with skill, because simply lobbing APCR twice in a game isn't going to make a bad player better.  It will 'up' their damage and maybe give them another win out of 100 in that specific sort of case.

 

A really good player may leverage 'gold' rounds to the tune of maybe even snagging 3% or 3.5%, due to the overall number of penetrating hits on average they would normally have.  One to two damaging shots per game?  Not a big deal using gold.  No real help there for the player other than a (false) confidence boost.

 

The really good player?  It will make a bigger difference, because each penetrating shot is going to have that much more effect for the really good player with that extra punch.

 

It really just becomes a numbers game.  The more shots you normally make per game on average, the more damage you'll end up doing spamming gold, and if you can do 10 to 14 shots during a normal game for you, you're talking nearly half again your total damage potential not using gold rounds.

 

I have known all this for a while.  It is, to me, just one more variable I have to deal with in order to play effectively.  I think the ammo rounds we have should have been stabilized, even if it meant not using "real" rounds for some guns, from the get-go:

HE = Low penetration, potential devastating Concussive Impact for damage, good for tracking and soft targets;

AP = Standard Armor Piercing Round, decent penetration and the most direct damage round in game; 

APCR = higher penetration, lower damage value round that allows players to penetrate armor up-tier at reduced damage values;

HEAT = high penetration round, but has high absorption rate for spaced armor and tracks.

 

If they had done something like this, they could have fudged the armor values as well to make things more playable without having such an unbalanced condition concerning the overall advantage skill has on it's own to impact these values.

 

They could easily have balanced out armor vs rounds as you scaled up-tier with this method.  Game design almost always requires real-world realism to be sacrificed for the sake of game play.

 

We have what we have now, though.  Not sure if the proposed changes that have been suggested by WG as a 'fix' for this is going to be any better than Mission UI 2.0 or the upcoming travesty of Crew 2.0, though, so...

 

Cross your fingers?

 

 

GL, HF & HSYBF!
OvO

[Ots090]

I've been getting a lot of comments lately about "gold" ammo. But it's funny to me that this so called gold ammo is bought with credits earned in the game. The same credits that are spent on the 'research' page to upgrade suspension, etc. So I suppose to be consistent, people that critisize buying upgraded ammo with credits should also not spend credits to do any upgrades on suspension, etc., on the research page. That is, the tank should be played 'bare bones,' so to speak. No upgraded turrets, radio - nothing. After all, there really is no difference. It's all credits spent for upgrades. Lol!

[RickEdwards]

Ots090, on Feb 25 2021 - 19:06, said:

I've been getting a lot of comments lately about "gold" ammo. But it's funny to me that this so called gold ammo is bought with credits earned in the game. The same credits that are spent on the 'research' page to upgrade suspension, etc. So I suppose to be consistent, people that critisize buying upgraded ammo with credits should also not spend credits to do any upgrades on suspension, etc., on the research page. That is, the tank should be played 'bare bones,' so to speak. No upgraded turrets, radio - nothing. After all, there really is no difference. It's all credits spent for upgrades. Lol!

 

I don't know why people try to use this as an argument; it's just terrible. The modules unlocked last are the ones balanced for that tier; a stock tank is generally made to be around the same power as the tank before on the line. Also, notice how basically all tier 10 tanks either have only one set of equipment, or alternative guns that are also not bad or better for certain situations, with very few exceptions (the IS-4 does have a really bad stock gun, but the top gun is unlocked before the tank). Gold ammo (they appear gold on the log that shows hit received, so they're gold ammo), are simply just a mechanic they tacked on as a pay2win mechanic that was originally only purchasable with gold. They were completely a textbook example of a pay2win mechanic; you paid real money, you got an advantage over people that did not. There was no question of whether they were balanced or not, cause they blatantly were not. The mechanics of gold ammo has not changed; they are still unbalanced. Tanks, with the exception of some fairly recently buffed ones, were, quite well I should add, balanced around normal ammo. There are some that have decent armor when facing normal ammo, but completely unusable armor when someone just presses 2. This is the reason that no one really plays the Type 5: despite so many people saying that its armor is overpowered, no one plays it because gold ammo is more overpowered. Tier 10 tanks balanced around normal ammo generally have 280-300 mm of effective armor max when angled properly; this amount is going to be penned far more that half the time by basically any gold round, making those tanks' armor a liability more than anything, thus often taking the one thing they have going for them.

[Ots090]

I'm not arguing your point about balanced this or that.

Credits spent in the game aren't OK for some things but not others and it's the cost of credits for the ammo that people complain about, at least when I'm playing. "Oh, you spent $400 a round to shoot me!" Blah, blah, blah.

If the costly ammo is problematic from a game mechanics perspective, that's not at issue here for me. WoT can fix it or not, whatever. I just think it is somewhat hypocritical to spend credits on some tank parts and at the same time critisize others for spending it on other aspects of the game. It's silly.

Edited by Ots090, Feb 25 2021 - 22:29.

[_Tsavo_]

Gold can be addressed, so long as the armor profiles of tanks are adjusted accordingly, otherwise, imma shoot whatever I need to whenever I need to

[Cloud_1]

Hmm this again 

2 cents Gold or more exactly premium rounds are part of the game. They are not the magic bullet, they have issues like HEAT protection, range normalization, worse engagement angle issues.  Because of these issues they aren't guaranteed to pen even with 330 pen. So as someone that hates their "hidden" mechanics , I use mostly regular rounds, and smirk to myself when the Bourrasque bounces a loadout of APCR on my well angle turret.

V/R

Cloud_1 

[RickEdwards]

Cloud_1, on Feb 26 2021 - 16:01, said:

Hmm this again 

2 cents Gold or more exactly premium rounds are part of the game. They are not the magic bullet, they have issues like HEAT protection, range normalization, worse engagement angle issues.  Because of these issues they aren't guaranteed to pen even with 330 pen. So as someone that hates their "hidden" mechanics , I use mostly regular rounds, and smirk to myself when the Bourrasque bounces a loadout of APCR on my well angle turret.

V/R

Cloud_1 

 

HEAT ammo's "downsides" of worse normalization and less effectiveness Vs spaced armor is actually mathematically negated. Even looking at the low end of HEAT ammo at tier 10 (Kranvagn) and comparing those to its normal APCR; through large amounts of angled armor (side of a Maus; 180 mm), HEAT has 50% change to penetrate at about 52 degrees and APCR has about a 24% chance to penetrate at that same angle; less than half the chance. At 56 degrees the APCR just starts to have a 0% chance to penetrate; the HEAT has a 30% chance at this angle. Even against angled armor, HEAT is more effective because the increased penetration more than negates the downsides that normalization cause.

 

Now lets look at spaced armor (Super Conq. upper hull; 20 mm + 152.4 mm): At about 55 degrees the HEAT has a 50% chance to penetrate; at the same angle, APCR is roughly 29%. At about 60 degrees APCR now has a 0% chance to penetrate; HEAT at the same is angle has around a 20% chance to penetrate. Even against angled spaced armor, HEAT is still more effective than its normal ammo counterpart.

 

Also, keep in mind that this is with one of the lowest (if not the lowest) penetration upgrade that a gold HEAT round provides, which is about a 19% penetration increase; some tanks (like the WZ-111 5A) gets a 36% penetration increase. If I were to look at the same situations in that tank, the angle disparities would be much greater even.

 

So, in conclusion, although the effective armor VS HEAT ammo of angled/spaced armor is higher than the effective armor Vs AP/APCR, the penetration increase on even the "worst" gold rounds allows for a greater penetration chance on those same armors, meaning that the gold HEAT rounds are still more effective against them.